Is It Safe To Buy A New Toyota?
The Volkswagen new Beetle has become the car that buyers researched most frequently over the Internet, according to BlueKai, a data-exchange and online-marketing company. The Beetle replaced last year’s winner of this spot, the Toyota Camry, which fell to 13th place on the most-researched list. The Toyota Prius, another high-ranker in year’s past, fell completely out of the top 20, according to BlueKai.
These results weren’t too difficult to predict. Toyota, which formerly could do little wrong, has had a terrible 2010. The company has recalled eight models of cars, a recall that began in January of this year. Since then, it’s been a steady stream of bad publicity for the Japanese automaker.
The question many car buyers now have is a simple one: Is it safe to buy a new Toyota?
It’s a difficult question to answer. Toyota has certainly ramped up its efforts to correct the potentially dangerous flaws that led to the vehicle recalls. The company is sparing no expenses, either, to repair its damaged image among the car-buying public.
The company has also rolled out several incentives to encourage buyers to return to Toyotas. Consumers who do want to buy a Camry, Corolla or Prius today will certainly find that their dollars will stretch farther than ever.
But how comfortable are customers today with Toyota? Do they trust the automaker? The company formerly had a sterling reputation as an automaker that manufactured vehicles that were not only safe, but would last for years. The theory was, consumers who bought Toyotas wouldn’t need to spend much of their dollars, or their precious time, in their local repair shops.
That image has been severely damaged, of course. Still, there has to be some goodwill left over from all those years that Toyota reigned as the most reliable automaker, right? Many motorists are still driving Toyotas that were built years before the recalled models, and those vehicles are performing well. Is there a feeling out there that Toyota has gotten its big mistake out of its system, and that the company’s engineers will now be steadier and more reliable than ever?
It comes down to personal choice: How much risk are consumers willing to take on behalf of a now struggling automaker? The guess here is that many consumers will come back to Toyota sooner rather than later. After all, Toyota has been a top company for years, and U.S. consumers have a history of both forgiving and forgetting.